


A Grain for Every Heartbeat

by twoofdiamonds



Category: Original Work
Genre: Allocated Number of Heartbeats, Ancient Manuscripts, F/M, Love Story, Short Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-03-17 13:02:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3530384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twoofdiamonds/pseuds/twoofdiamonds





	A Grain for Every Heartbeat

The first time he sees her she's working the room, butterflying from baroness to banker. He hears snatches of conversation: she's an art dealer. It's opening night at the Tate Modern for the artist of the moment. It's not urinals stuck on walls but Calder doesn't rate this guy much higher. The art's all about powdered lines, nothing that would stand up to a stiff breeze. Calder has seen more than his share of powdered lines: it comes with the job. The police presence here is only for show because London's elite expect it. Half these guests are probably running criminal operations of their own, and some of them on a massive scale. He feels like a glorified security guard.

 

He's more than ready to call it a night, and most of the guests are long gone, by the time she makes her way out into the foyer. They're alone, he realises, and tries a small smile as she passes. She blanks him, chin at the arrogant tilt, trademark of her class, and then her stiletto heel snaps, sending her tumbling over like a ninepin.

 

He bites down on his smile and rushes over to help but she pushes him away. “I'm fine,” she snaps and it makes him feel angry and hurt, more than it has any right to. “There's a car, just outside,” her accent is clipped; privileged. He watches her to the door, barefoot and wrapped in real furs. At the last minute she turns. He's expecting a scowl but what he gets is a small rueful grin, completely disarming. She's heart-stoppingly beautiful.

 

He thinks about her a lot; sees her picture in the papers. She's Claudia Harrington, independent valuer of the fine arts. He catches a glimpse of her once at a red carpet event, hanging off some sugar daddy's arm. She looks right at him and he forgets where he is, can hardly breathe until he's jostled by some kid who's over-eager for an autograph, and remembers why he's there.

 

The very last place he expects to come across her is at the docks. There's a raid; a warehouse full of stolen goods, and not the run of the mill household goods either. There's some really weird shit: ornate daggers and tribal statues. She's out of sight of the others, behind a stack of crates and _what the fuck is she doing there?_ There's a moment of checkmate. He could go after her, should go after her, but then Jamison is yelling his name and they've got McCormick, which was the whole point of the operation. She runs. He lets her go.

 

Later he tells himself that he did the right thing. McCormick's a slippery bastard and his lawyers cost more per hour than Calder's rent costs per month, but they really might have him this time. He tells himself that going after Claudia would have jeopardised that. It doesn't explain why he leaves her out of his report.

 

Claudia Harrington walks into the station asking to see him, late on the second Friday in March. It's been a busy evening: the D&Ds just keep on coming. Irlam's on the desk but he slips out for a fag break as soon as Calder appears.

 

“I want your protection, Officer Calder,” she says, like it's a Hollywood movie. He can't believe she knows his name.

 

At first she's cagey about the details: a deal gone bad; a threat, and he must look as bemused as he feels because she becomes agitated. He must have been aware that the Sumerian scrolls had been auctioned at Sotherbies last week, she insists. It had been in all the papers. Millions of dollars had been exchanged and Claudia had taken her cut.

 

She says it was the biggest and worst deal she ever made. She says that the scrolls have come to life.

 

He tries questioning her the official way but she won't name her persecutor, saying only that it is somebody who refuses to abide by the rules. She claims to have upset somebody very powerful, who is also very royal and accustomed to simply taking what they want. It had been a bad deal this time, cutting out the wrong somebody, she says. “We all have a finite number of heartbeats Officer Calder and mine are being taken in payment for the scrolls.”

 

He tells her to go home and think on it. It sounds like a crazy story and he doesn't know what else to do. He tries to sound kind. She looks murderous but then defeated. He almost wants to call her back as she walks away, head down. He almost does.

 

She has waited for him outside and he curses under his breath. She's shivering, arms wrapped around herself. She has a thin cardigan, probably cashmere he thinks. It might as well be tissue paper in the cold night air. He puts his jacket around her shoulders and she smiles.

 

She begs him not to leave her alone.

 

He asks where her friends are and she laughs. There's no humour in it. “There are no friends in the art world,” she tells him. “Only acquaintances.” Family then, he asks but her expression closes off. He sighs. He starts to say no, starts to shake his head because she's beautiful, if a little crazy, and he wants nothing more than to take her home but he can't; won't because it's wrong.

 

Before it's settled they're accosted. It's just a mugger; just some down and out who wants her Louis Vuitton handbag, and he gets into a brawl. If she hadn't been there, looking small and vulnerable, depending on him, then he probably won't have done it. The guy had a knife and it was stupid; not worth it.

 

She's quiet afterwards and miserable. The fancy handbag is where it belongs though.

 

“You should have let him have me,” she says in a small voice and he tells her no, that the guy had wanted her bag, that's all, but she won't listen. “My time has run out,” she says and she looks more forlorn than ever so he takes her home anyway.

 

In his apartment she's brighter, snooty again, having got her way. She looks around pointedly at the mess and when he offers her tea she curls her perfectly formed top lip at the taste and refuses to drink it. It cools on the glass coffee table between them, substandard and rejected.

 

They start again, awkwardly. It's late and she clearly needs sleep but if she's really in danger then he needs to know. She says it wasn't her fault; that it was a poor deal but she's seen worse. She says that it's a woman, that this woman is demanding the manuscripts be returned and won't take no for an answer. She doesn't meet his eye while she talks.

 

“I can't get them back,” she says earnestly. “I do well enough but those manuscripts are worth more money than I'll see in this lifetime.” She puts a hand to her long graceful throat and says, “So she's taking her payment in heartbeats. Every tiny grain is a heartbeat you see, and she's taking them all at once.”

 

He doesn't see but he stops asking.

 

He pours them a real drink and this time she curls her lip but doesn't refuse. They clink their glasses softly and swallow it down. He notices her manicured nails and the silver bracelet that brushes against the almost invisible hairs of her forearm.

 

“Ninlil,” she says, out of the blue. “She's coming to collect my soul.”

 

“Because you've used up all your heartbeats.”

 

She doesn't answer.

 

He makes up the couch and leaves her be.

 

All night he thinks about the beautiful girl in the next room and sleeps very poorly. He can hardly believe she's really there. He has to keep fighting the urge to go and check.

 

It's just as well that he doesn't sleep well because his smoke alarm doesn't go off. He smells the smoke in time to get them both out, down the fire escape and into the street.

 

The fire and the mugger. It's coincidence, he tells himself. It's 3am.

 

At 3.42am she nearly gets hit by a nightbus that comes out of nowhere. At 3.56am, just before they walk into the Novotel, an honest-to-God brick falls from a rooftop and misses her by bare inches.

 

When Calder comes out of the tiny hotel bathroom at 4.12am Claudia is being held hostage by Ninlil, the Sumarian corn goddess. Her legs are bound to the chair legs, hands behind her back and she has thick tape covering her delicate mouth.

 

Ninlil points her knife at him as he enters. The bathroom door slams. “Don't think about it,” she warns in heavily accented English.

 

“What are you doing?” he asks, “What are you?”

 

She holds up a small glass jar with a scant amount of gold dust sitting the bottom. “I collect in person,” Ninlil announces and Claudia begins to struggle in earnest.

 

Inside the jar there is a tiny movement, pulsing. He realises that the pulsing is a rapid heartbeat. It looks like movement because a tiny grain disappears with every pulse; a grain for every heartbeat.

 

“No,” he says.

 

“No?” Ninlil mocks him, cocking her head. “Stupid human. You dare tell me no? She,” gesturing at Claudia, “dared to defy me. She is arrogant, this one. Entitled. She is child of the serpent.” The goddess spits at Claudia and Claudia's head lolls.

 

 _Breathing_ , he tells himself. _Unconscious but breathing_.

 

“She could never love you.” Ninlil says. “She uses you to protect herself. Pah! From me!” She lifts the dagger.

 

“Wait!” he cries, “Please, I...” and he can't think, but surely... “Can't she buy some time back?”

 

“There are strict rules, law man.” Ninlil says, looking speculatively at Calder, as though she had noticed something new about him. “I will not give away time.”

 

“Can I?” His mouth says the words before his brain has processed them.

 

“Can you what?” Ninlil asks but she's smiling a cruel smile.

 

“Can I give away my time? To her I mean?”

 

“If you're so stupid, then yes. But it would be foolish indeed.”

 

He looks again at how beautiful she is. Childlike in sleep, strands of hair sticking to her forehead.

 

“And how much will I give? _”_ Ninlil prompts him, sounding already bored with the matter. 

 

“Half,” he says, and it comes out in a whisper. “Half,” he says again louder.

 

“So be it. More fool you, law man.” And she points at the door to the room, which opens as Claudia stirs.

 

He unties her, gathers her up and they go, moving fast and not looking back, leaving everything behind. He takes her to Irlam's place and later, when the repair work is complete, back to his apartment. Somehow she never gets around to leaving.

 

Ninlil considers two glass jars, only a few years of golden dust pulsing through each. She thinks of the law man: his earnest face and bravery; the way he had looked at the little hussy thief like she was the only star in his sky. 

 

She shakes her head and moves her hand across them, as though to sprinkle barley corn, breathing, “Live well, law man.”

 

The newly filled phials are tucked into her robes for safekeeping and the goddess sets about reclaiming her scrolls.


End file.
